The Citadelle Laferrière

Built by the newly free against an invasion that never came

The Citadelle Laferrière sits on the summit of Bonnet à l'Evêque in northern Haiti, about 8 km uphill from the town of Milot, and from its roof you can see Cap-Haïtien and the Atlantic. Haiti had declared its independence on 1 January 1804, after fourteen years of struggle by the island's enslaved people against the colonists, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines gave one of his generals, Henri Christophe, the task of building a fortress to protect the young country. Work began in 1805.

Up to 20,000 workers built it, most of them formerly enslaved, and about one in ten is believed to have died. They set the foundation stones straight into the rock with a mortar of quicklime, molasses, the blood of cows and goats, and cows' hooves cooked down to glue. The walls rise 40 metres. The Haitian Henry Barré drew the plans, though Christophe probably had the larger hand in them: four buildings and four flanking towers around a central courtyard, stepped up on several levels of batteries and barracks. From the trail below it looks like the prow of a stone ship jutting out of the mountain, and some of its angles were cut to deflect cannonballs.

Cisterns and storehouses could keep 5,000 defenders in food and water for a year. There were royal quarters, dungeons, baths and bakery ovens, and 365 cannon of every size, gathered from what the European armies had left behind. The cannonballs still sit in pyramid stacks at the foot of the walls. If the French landed, Christophe meant to burn the coastal crops and food stores, fall back to the fortress and ambush the invaders on the single mountain path.

The French never came; Napoleon was busy with his European campaigns. Dessalines died in 1806, the country split, and in 1811 Christophe proclaimed himself king of the north, inaugurating the Citadelle in 1813 together with his Sans-Souci Palace at the foot of the road. In 1820 he had a stroke, some of his troops mutinied, and he killed himself, by legend with a silver bullet. Loyal followers covered his body in quicklime and buried it in one of the fortress courtyards to keep it from being mutilated. His brother-in-law lies there too, killed when the gunpowder room exploded.

The earthquake of 1842 damaged the fortress and wrecked the palace, but the Citadelle has stood through many others since. UNESCO helped seal it against water from 1979 to 1990 and listed it in 1982, among the first monuments built by enslaved people who had won their freedom. It is the largest fortress in Haiti, one of the largest in the New World, and it appears on the country's currency and stamps.